Abba became deeply unfashionable ... then people remembered that they were brilliant
FELLOW ACTOR/ WRITER IAN
How did new comedy drama The Way Old Friends Do, about school pals who form the world’s first Abba tribute band, come about?
Ian Hallard, 48: I have script edited stuff in the past and we adapted and collaborated together on a few episodes of Poirot, but adapting something is very different from coming up with an original idea. And then I thought, write what you know ... and get to play a member of Abba.
Abba is the setting and the background, but the play is really about friendship. It all coalesced and I think I wrote the first draft in a week.
Mark Gatiss, 56: (Laughs) He’s taken longer refining it. It was full of spelling mistakes.
I knew he was up to something. I thought he was having an affair. He was being very furtive and then I was on the Isle of Wight and he emailed me and said I have been writing and I loved it. I thought it was very accomplished and for a quick, first draft it was in very good shape, very funny and very touching and a great idea.
The whole premise of this is bout two friends meeting up in middle age and deciding to do this tribute band for a laugh. It’s about friendship through the prism of this obsession, really.
To me it’s a bit like Nick Hornby’s book Fever Pitch where, even if you know nothing about football and dislike football like me, you can translate your own obsessions into it.
Abba had this amazing universal appeal and its only grown.
It is a remarkable story. They became deeply unfashionable and then people remembered they were brilliant and they have sort of conquered the world all over again.
When did the love affair with Abba begin?
Ian: I hesitate to say, but probably in the womb. My mum was pregnant with me when Abba won Eurovision. (Laughs) That makes it sound like an immaculate conception. She was sitting there and suddenly ... which would explain a lot. It’s been my whole life really. When I was growing up, mum used to buy all the albums and I played them and when I was about three she knitted me – at my request, yellow blonde plaits so I could dance around the living room as Agnetha to Take A Chance On Me.
Mark: Are there any photos?
Ian: (Laughs) No, but this play has been a long time coming. I inadvertently picked up my mum’s Christmas present to me for last year, an Abba mug, before this interview. It wasn’t deliberate. I actually just took off my Abba hoodie because I thought it looked too much.
Mark: I’ve always been an Abba fan, but I’ve learned an awful lot more about them over the years because of Ian. They have got distinct phases of reinvention. It’s like Doctor Who. (Laughs) Doctor Who is my Abba.
When a new Doctor starts new kids come on board with that and then they can look back and see all this other stuff other Doctors have done and you can do that with Abba.
Have you ever met any of the members of Abba?
Mark: We’ve met three of the four.
Frida [Lyngstad] remains the elusive one, not Agnetha [Faltskog].
Ian: I met Benny [Anderson] at Chess [the musical by Björn Ulvaeus and Tim Rice] and I’ve met Björn, but Agnetha was the biggie. She’s normally the most elusive one.
(Laughs) I did tell her the story about the yellow plaits, but I don’t think it really translated well. Mark: She is lovely though. We also went to see Abba Voyage [the virtual concert residency by the group in London] for my birthday.
Do you enjoy working together?
Mark: (Laughs) No, it’s awful.
Ian: The last time we worked on stage together was six years ago with The Boys In The Band.
People were asking would it be OK and we were, ‘Well, we like each other’.
We did talk quite a lot about whether Mark should direct this production. It wasn’t a foregone conclusion.
I think because it is such a personal thing for me, it was like trusting someone with my baby. We are lucky that we do have similar artistic tastes.
Mark: I enjoy directing. It’s a very different process. One of the nice things about it is how contained it is. It is a very specific time and intense period of work and then you just have to move on to something else.
Were you listening to Abba when writing The Way Old Friends Do?
Ian: (Laughs) I spend every single day listening to Abba songs.
I put my earplugs in so Mark gets some respite.
How are TV’s Paul O’Grady and actress Miriam Margolyes involved in the production?
Ian: They do voiceovers. Paul has already recorded his and Miriam will soon.
Mark: (Laughs) But we are not doing Miriam live. We should do what they do in those Marvel movies and just play Miriam’s out-takes at the end.
Ian: Either that or she just comes on tour with us and stands in the wings every night.
The Way Old Friends Do, written by Ian Hallard and directed by Mark Gatiss, launches at Birmingham Rep on February 17.
CO-CREATOR MARK GATISS AND HUSBAND,
HALLARD, TALK TO MARION McMULLEN ABOUT THE INSPIRATION BEHIND THEIR LATEST